Throughout history, the vessel as
format has remained a potent and viable metaphor.At its most basic, it is a form that both occupies space and
contains it, a dialog that occurs somewhere between the lower base and the
upper rim, a vectorial indicator that digs deep roots into the earth and moves
upwards into the non-specific openness of accessibility. The force and velocity
with which that movement of energy occurs is dependent on the very specific
relationship between the occupied space, the contained space, and the opening
through which its constrained energy is escaping. Hence, a vessel with a
swollen belly and a narrow neck gives off a very different message than a wide
open one that does not return inwards after it reaches its maximum
diameter.It is a form ripe with
possibility, and as one that so closely refers to the physical bodies which we
inhabit, it has, in poetry and in art, become the quintessential symbol of our
humanity.

It is impossible to talk about
holloware of the late 20th and early 21st century without mentioning something
about the separation between object and image that occurred both as a result of
the industrial revolution that provided mass-produced consumer goods and the
development of photography to which we owe the utter bombardment of our
societal landscape with images.Most recently, a further transformation has taken place with the advent
of digital technology that allows immediate access to image through the
internet, and, additionally, the emergence of a new class of objects produced
with computer assisted design technologies that allow for quick and subtle
variations in product design.Hand-crafted functional objects can no longer be experienced on their
own terms, and any interaction with a crafted vessel must be seen in light of
the mass-produced norm from which it deviates.As Bernard Cache writes in Earth Moves, his brilliant work of conceptualization dealing
primarily with architectural image:

Functionalism presupposes a certain kind of structuralism.
For objects exist only inasmuchas
there exists a sort of contract about their use or production.In the days of craftsmanship, the
traditional object was overlain with a whole set of customs and usages that
were the true source of objectivity, even if some objects only had the status
of tertiary images: frame objects, fetishes or symbols.These images did not exist in virtue of
the contract; they were the very representation of it.In fact, an entire side of traditional
culture only served as a reminder of the contract that was at the origin of the
object..1

The point that Cache makes cannot
be overlooked in talking about contemporary holloware and should be taken into
account when reading the artist’s statements for EIP that repeatedly refer to
the act of “giving pleasure of use” or the “beauty of function”.These statements betray the reactionary
nature of many of the works being

p.2

exhibited, which are not premised
on the same structural contract of those produced

prior to the industrial
revolution, but on a contract that includes image and its accompanying
history-- a contract that can be seen as a complete exorcism of the Bauhaus and
the early modernist agenda, a reversal of sorts, a third generation object that
holds on dearly to the notion of functionalism for a kind of cultural legality
while snubbing its nose at prudence, economy, and the purity of formalism in
favor of image, decoration, and personal expression.

In 1993, Bruce Metcalf published
two separate but related articles that provided convincing arguments for the
separation of craft and art.In
the first, titled“Replacing the
Myth of Modernism”2, he followed the
craft object as it re-emerged from the Modernist agenda that had stripped it of
the idiosyncratic and placed it at odds with the theory of autonomy that
defined the modernist notion of art for arts sake.In this article,

Metcalf looked at several examples
by craft artists who attempted to make modernist-style sculpture in craft
media, and concluded that craft artists should stop trying to make art with a
capital A.In another related
essay titled “Craft and Art, Culture and Biology”3, Metcalf makes a
particularly interesting argument for the innate relationship between man and
his craft, drawing heavily on the physical labor associated with craft-making
and the domestic life in which craft is meant to participate.It is a fascinating argument worth
making, but it is meant to undermine the recent appropriation by craftsman of
the fine arts ideologies of modernism and post modernism and to get craft
artists back to the business of satisfying society’s need for handmade objects
to use.Metcalf, who has been
making jewelry for years that nobody needs (but many want),that is, incidentally, chock-a -block
with personal narrative and references to social issues, is a master at playing
the Devil’s advocate, but at some point a more comprehensive and less
confrontational theory needs to be put forth, one that embraces the sort of
work that Metcalf, himself, is producing.

Mine is a theory that attempts to
cut through the Cartesian rift of duality and express the relationship of craft
and art as one that is in keeping with the generally pluralistic nature of the
times we live in, and one that does not hold the mercurial state of the late
20th and early 21st century fine arts world as a standard by which craft
objects should be evaluated.The
histories of art and craft are two contingent but parallel time-lines that were
borne of a common source, have occasionally merged, have nevertheless affected
one another even when they have not merged, and that are responsible, in
varying degrees, for the success of the best work in both arenas.It is true, as Metcalf asserts,
that for some time craft has become a dirty word in fine arts circles, and he
further suggests, almost in retaliation, that art should become a dirty world
in the language of crafts.He
recommends that we call ourselves silversmiths or jewelers, or ceramicists or
furniture makers, instead of insisting that we are artists when we are clinging
to a rigid set of parameters that have been set by the history of our craft, a
set

p.3

of parameters that require that
the object be executed with a technical virtuosity that honors its tradition,
references its functional roots even if not fully functional, and relies on its
physicality to provide a beckoning open window through which its content can be
accessed.

The history of art has always
included works in craft media and it always will.The degree to which the craft objects being produced at any
given time conform to the theoretical agenda that is popular with the fine arts
world of painting, sculpture, and the more recent non-material based art forms
is, at best worthy of notation and discussion, but by no means the criteria
with which these objects should be examined or codified. If one wants to
examine the current state of craft objects in the post-modernist age, one must
first make some attempt at understanding Modernism as a

time frame in which craft
underwent its own development.We
can defineModernism, as Suzi
Gablik does so neatly in the the opening sentence of Has Modernism Failed?, as“the term that has been used to
describe the art and culture of the past hundred years”4 or, as Sandro Bocala
does in his excellent volume, The Art of
Modernism :“I view Modernism
as an independent cultural age comparable to Greco Roman Antiquity , the Middle
Ages, or the Modern Age.A look at
this chronology shows that these epochs successively diminish in length.Modernism, whose beginning I date
around 1870, seems to be drawing to a close and is unlikely to survive into the
21st century.”5I find it
interesting that a craft practitioner such as Metcalf has chosen to define
Modernism in terms of the emergence of the theory of autonomy of the art object
that, in my opinion, caused the fine arts
to becomea contingent art form,
choosing to permanently secede from a history that very much included
crafts.What is clear is that the
industrial revolution coincided with and facilitated this split and that crafts
entered into a period of Modernist Design that was very much distinguishable
from the Modernism to which Metcalf refers.The term design, itself, is a modern one, and
has probably been more trouble than its worth.Although rooted in the notion of a plan or preliminary
drawing for any work of art or architecture, it has taken on another meaning
that relates to objects produced after the industrial revolution in which
thatplan or model became the end
of the creative process, and the making would be accomplished by a machine that
would reproduce it in quantity.From there it somehow evolved into general usage to signify an
all-encompassing field of problem solving, which included craft, and in which
function was a necessary concern, even if the object was hand-made.In spite of that larger and less
specific definition, and in order to differentiate between Modernism as Metcalf
defines it and the separate issues related to craft during the same era, I will
refer to Modernist Design.The
period to which I am referring can be thought of as beginning with a revolt
against Victorian revivalism that resulted in the late 19th century with the
period that is best know as Art Nouveau, but that is really a group of almost
simultaneous movements that occurred in rapid succession across Europe and
included the The English Arts and Crafts Movement, pioneered by William Morris,
the French Art Nouveau, best exemplified in the works of Galle and Lalique, and
the

p.4

Austrian Wiener Werkstatte, as
founded by Josef Hoffman.. What all of these groupshad in common was a secularism that broke with the past, and
an attempt to find a unified design language that reacted to industrialization
with a fervent belief in the handmade and a general distrust of the tired re-working
of past decorative styles. Where the English Arts and Crafts Movement displayed
an “enlightened traditionalism that focused on understated and sensible
botanical motifs”6, the French Art Nouveau favored lively floral stylization,
flowing lines, nubile nymphs, and a detached

sensuality.Shortly after, the Wiener Werkstatte
introduced crisp angularity and modest geometric simplicity.Each in their own way contributed to
what would later become the bastion of Modernist Design, the Bauhaus.

The Bauhaus, founded in 1919 by
Walter Gropius in Weimar, and shut down in 1933 by the Nazis, was the last
significant major movement to affect crafts and its legacy is

still very alive into the early
21st century.Although
architecture played the leading role, it was a school that attempted to unify
the visual arts under a single umbrella of formalism, stressing clarity,
functionality, and a true fusion of fine art, craft, architecture, and
industry.College foundation
programs all across America in the post-war period were built on the Bauhaus
curriculum, and it is only very recently that there has been any move away from
it by the most forward-thinking educators.It is my contention that Modernist design and the Bauhaus
are inseparable, and that crafts must be examined in light of the slow letting
go of the Bauhaus influence that has manifested itself in the production of
craft objects that are only tangentially functional. It may be true, as Metcalf
asserts, that early attempts by craftsman to make sculpture were less than
successful.However, crafts has
now undergone a long and gradual evolution in which functionality has slowly
diminished, and if these transitional works appear awkward in their
relationship between content and a barely-functioning functionality, we finally
have enough distance to appreciate that discomfort as an innate quality of
transition.Although craft has
been holding onto its utilitarian format for dear life, other things have been
brewing while it has bought itself some time to develop a new language for the
Post-Modernist age.As the fine
arts world has moved away from materialism, I believe craft will be the sole
inheritor of the future of the material arts.Whereas Bruce Metcalf claims to want craft to return to its
place within everyday life, I believe its future lies elsewhere.Although I hope and believe that there
will always be functional potters and silversmiths and weavers,this will not and should not be the
direction that will emerge from the academic arena.American craft has a mission, unique to its particular time
and place, on which it has been preparing to embark, and there are signs that
it may already have begun.

In an essay titled “Writing about
Objects we don’t Understand” by Jonathan Meuli7, he mentions a model suggested
by the feminist theorist Griselda Pollack in her writing about the late 19th
century French avant-garde.In
Pollock’s model, the concept of originality is seen as contextualized, and each
artists work can be examined and understood in a relative light, isolated from
the limitations of the canon of art history to

p.5

which it may or may not be granted
entrance, and accepted in its non-adherence to the grand theories of its own
time.In Pollack’s model, she
creates a clever triad of terms: reference, deference, and difference, that
allow for a comparative system in which to discuss objects for which
classification in the larger historical system and using the prevalent theories
may not be appropriate nor effective.As a model designed to discuss works that were out of the mainstream
during a pivotal transition that included Impressionism, Post-impressionism,
and Cubism, and led to what we now see as Modern Art, it is as good as any I’ve
found to work with any category of art objects that are still very much in
theoretical limbo.

Using Griselda Pollack’s
three-pointed model of reference, deference, and difference, one must necessarily attempt to establish the overall
climate in which works in craft media are being produced and the current state
of crafts education in North America.Since the vast majority of works included in EIP (and the vast majority
of those submitted) came from metalsmiths who have been academically trained
(and in many cases, who are now doing the training, as these samepeople now hold, or have recently
retired from, positions at those same institutions), and there is no other
system in place, such as that of the master/apprentice, training metalsmiths
with the same level of proficiency,I will consider it safe to say that the academic standard in
metalsmithing represents the prevailing milieu from which these late 20th and
early 21st century works have emerged.Noting that most of these programs were founded by first or second
generation modernists, including but not limited to Alma Eikerman, Jack Prip,
Kurt Matzdorf, Richard Thomas, Hans Christensen. et al, one can acknowledge the
still ever-present influence of modernist design while asserting that it is no
longer the prevailing ideology.Artistic intent has replaced the modernist agenda and a move away from
function towards the autonomous art object has certainly occurred.New materials have begun to replace the
old standbys, and an attempt has been made to transfer the craftsman’s way of
executing an object to materials that had formerly been the domain of fine
artists.It is is not
uncommon to find a metalsmith working in steel (and not forged steel, as in the
blacksmith’s craft), plastics, flowers and twigs, paint, cut-up money, stone,
cement, photographs, etc.Interesting and noteworthy, however, is that these materials are
manipulated with the same precision and care when in the hands of the
craft-trained practitioner, and the completed objects, with or without content
that refers to the history of their field, contain that history, nevertheless,
in the quality of the execution.In as much as American metals programs are purported to be moving
towards the training of sculptors, I do not see that this is the case.What I see is a rather confused and
ambiguous field striving to move forward

and, at the same time, to hold on
to the part of its past that is essential and irreplaceable. Such can be seen
as the explanation for the diversity of approaches in this exhibition in print,
and the over-cautious and sometimes reactionary musings of formidable minds
like Metcalf’s.However, examining
these works in light of anything other than the evolution of the field out of
which they have risen is as counterproductive as an assertion that craft remain
craft.Craft is not listening, and
it

p.6

has undergone its own
transformation quite apart from what painting and sculpture are up to.A closed and relativesystem of inquiry, in the manner of
that put forth by Pollack, can perhapsbest shed light on this odd assortment of art objects called
contemporary holloware.

For every action there is an equal
and opposite reaction, and on that note I will begin with a discussion of the
most traditionally based works in the exhibition, those of James Curtis, the
silversmith of Williamsburg, who is producing expert near- reproductions of
Early American silver holloware, and Valentin Yotkov, who is producing raised,
chased and repoussed holloware in copper based on traditional Bulgarian design
motifs. For both of these practitioners, superb craft and total functionality
are the guiding principles and their work honors the history of their craft

with reverence and fidelity.These anachronistic works must be
acknowledged in light of what Bernard Cache pointed out about the handmade
object in the post-industrial age, and as something other than contextual
appropriation, which would not necessitate the making of the object, nor mere
museum shop style reproduction, which would not account for the exceptional integrity
displayed in their execution.They
can only be seen as referring to the
current state of metalsmithing in a reactionary way, and by simplyrefusing to defer to the standards that have been set by the academic community
that requires originality, intent, and some semblance of autonomy.They can be seen as authentic copies of
the type that Borges refers to in his brilliant short story, “Louis Menard,
Author of Don Quixote.”8In the
story, the writer attempts to re-live the life of Don Quixote in the late 20th
century and then re-write the great work in his own words.In a typically clever Borgesian twist
of irony, the new work and the original are presented side by side, in order
that the reader can examine their differences, which the writer asserts are
vast.The two texts are identical,
verbatim, even thoughthe climates
in which they were produced were quite different.The new version necessarily assumes a second-generation
status, and, in doing so, modifies the original and sheds light on the history
to which that original belongs.In
the case of the James Curtis works, it is our own history as American
silversmiths that we are forced to confront, a history that included modest
variations on English presentation silver of the 17th and 18th Century, and one
is understandably compelled to wonder whether this process of re-evaluation
could not be accomplished simply by visiting the originals in museums.To this question I can only answer yes,
it is so for the viewer; not so, on the other hand, for the maker.Perhaps it is the function of the
reactionary spirit to achieve no more or less than the profound slowing down of
the tides of progress, and for this we, as metalsmiths trying desperately not to
lose touch with the craft that is masterfully exemplified by Curtis and Yotkov,
should be grateful.

Early modernist design roots can
be seen in most of the works in EIP, and, notsurprisingly, are most apparent in the group that
constitutes the invited artists who tend to be the earlier American
smiths.Since EIP was limited to
living artists, many of the

p.7

pioneers are not represented.However, it is quite easy to see those
roots in the functional holloware of Kurt Matzdorf, Fred Fenster, Chunghi Choo,
Richard Mafong, Lois Betteridge, Bernie Bernstein, and John Marshall, and,
additionally, the elegantly sensual silver vessels of Jack da Silva, the the
stunning retro teapots of Charlie Crowley, and the starkly architectural and
foreboding vessels of Billie Jean Theide, whose works have newer elements that
cleverly allude to the death of Modernist design.One cannot but appreciate the modesty and altruism inherent
in these objects thatare designed
to serve and embellish a lifestyle of peace and an ordered, dignified
domesticity.Seen today, many of
these works appear reactionary in their own right, refusing to defer to the tendency towards
over-concepualization that has permeated the crafts, and remaining unerringly
faithful to a craft agenda that values use and ceremony.In the case of several of these
artists, such as Matzdorf, Bernstein, Mafong, and Fenster, liturgical and
commemorative works became part of their oeuvre, and one can see the influences
of the post-war awakening to humanitarianism and individualism that began to appear
as a reaction against the painful legacy of Suprematism and the unified world
order that had gone awry.In Kurt
Matzdorf’s recent Hanukkiah lamp, for example, a quintessential modernist
design in its streamlined form, economical spirit, and absolute functionality,
the form is embellished with expertly modeled two-sided figures representing
the history of Jewish martyrdom.The figures are rendered with a modest, non-threatening lack of
sentimentality.This is a strength
that has always belonged to Matzdorf’s style, and he is able, as a result, to
imbue the works with a sense of healing and reconciliation that is
characteristic of the best of the post-war modernists.In a slightly earlier work by Fred Fenster,
(not recent, but requested by this writer), the pewter Star Kiddush cup,
modernist design is coupled with the beginnings of an organic accessibility
that renders the work devoid of the cool machine-age precision that often
characterized modernist design.I
have always found this work to be luscious and startlingly elegant in its reference to a modified and more
sensual geometry that typified the design of the 50’s, 60’s,70’s, and early
80’s-- a peerless example of a new type of liturgical object, one that no
longer sees religious ceremony with an exalted illusiveness but with an eye
towards the fully-integrated and private spiritual experience that became part
of the new spirit of tolerance that dominated the mid- twentieth century.

The transition from Modernism to
Post-Modernism in crafts has been occasioned by a eclectic re-working of the
decorative styles of the past without fully relinquishing the deeply ingrained
formalist ideology.The resultant
hybrids constitute the largest group of artworks in the exhibition and,
arguably, the richest visually.In
these works we see the reappearance of highly textured, patterned, decorated
surfaces, intensely colored enamels and paints, forms embellished with
gemstones, mixed metals, and an overall

sensibility that values beauty as
“pleasure regarded as the quality of a thing”9.In this group which constitutes a third of the participants,
I include Harlan Butt, Linda Darty, Sarah Perkins, Robert Stone, Susan
Wood-Onstad, June Schwarz, Patricia Nelson,

Catherine Grisez.Diverse as their works are, there
is surprising coherency to the parameters to which they adhere.In all cases, the artists have chosen
the vessel format while creating works that fall somewhere between being
completely non-functional or barely, ceremonially functional --these are decorative objects in the
best sense of that word-- capable of adorning and enhancing our daily lives,
but certainly not intended for everyday use.For crafts, these works are the true evidence of the break
with Modernist design, and usher in the age of post-modernism with a lively
pilfering of the past as if a caged population had finally been let loose to
explore the world.It should be
noted that these are not necessarily works devoid of content, in some it
figures prominently, such as in Komelia Okim’s blend of modernist essentialism
withthe narrative form that is so
indicative of Korean metalsmithing. But in all cases that content is subverted
by a format that is intended to be seductive and appealing.A number of these artists, such as
Helen Shirk, Linda Threadgill, Pat Nelson, Komelia Okim and even June Schwarz,
have deep Modernist roots that can be seen in earlier works, and the featured
pieces exhibit an energetic thrust over the top into an arena that shows new
found enthusiasm, obsession, and stylistic flourish.

Patricia Nelson, who has always
been the ultimate fin de siecle
eclectic, exhibits a work that is jam-packed with references, yet refreshingly
and movingly original.In her
lidded copper vessel titled Kantharos Ammonoidea , Nelson
shamelessly acknowledges her source, the two handled Hellenic kantharos drinking vessel of the 5th
Century BC, and thenexaggerates
its basic awkward functionality with an extended delineation of form that is
merely open wirework.In the lid
she sets an ammonite, or fossilized prehistoric creature, and then carves the
most elegantly Art Nouveau inspired handles out of butternut.From the ammonite she takes a repeating
pattern of spirals that becomes her decorative motif and, in case you missed
the point, history has repeated itself before your very eyes.What the viewer is left with is an
objectthat defers to the entire history of design but refers directly only to itself. Its a brilliant trick--revivalism meets formalism- and its a
wonderful example of the type of object that a period called Post-Modernism can
allow.

Equally rich in cross-pollination
are the magnificent enameled vessels of Harlan Butt, who owes his largest debt
to themannered naturalism of Art
Nouveau, complete with flowing stylized snakes, toads and dragonflies, flowers
and foliage, but who also uses forms from Chinese enameled vases and patterns
that resemble those of the Arts and Crafts style. These are works that are
almost irresistibly seductive in their lush colors and creamy surfaces, even to
the most hardened Modernist (or Post-modernist) -- they are tight, formal, and
controlled-- executed with a technical perfection worthy of Faberge, and
decorated with what could be called a reserved aristocratic tastefulness that
stops just short of excess.

Other noteworthy examples from the
above group are Helen Shirk’s fully-realized and

p.9

expertly manipulated vessels and
platters replete with stylized, naturalistic and

colorful graphic images that she
produces with prismacolor in a crackle-glaze style

thatreferences illustration
rendering from the 50’s and 60’s.These works occasionally cross boundaries into the surrealist style both
in the almost airbrushed look that we associate with Dali, Tanguy and Magritte,
and the curious grasping- body- parts imagery she sometimes employs. As with
all of Shirk’s earlier works, there is a dry and aloof sophistication to her imagery,
she remains one of the extraordinary stylists working in the field today.Richard Stone’s sensual raised silver
vessels with Damascus steel supports merge the arts of the silver and
blacksmith with a profound Art Nouveau reference that expresses the innate
fluidity of his materials. In fact, these works reference earlier examples from
the turn of the century in which glass is blown into a decorative metal
armature and allowedto bulge out
the sides.Catherine Grisez’ssensual monumental chased vessel forms
are more form than function, closed hollow constructed inner/outer dialogs that
surely reference works of the Late Antiquity. In most cases, the works in this
group refer to bothmodernism and the history of the
decorative arts, defer to the important
precedents, and differ significantly
from them as they try to balance the often combative menage atrois of
formalism, content, and function.

Narrative work in American crafts
became an important method of escaping the reins of modernism.It
referred to Modernism only in so much that the lessons of formalism could
not be unlearned, and chose to defer,
instead, to the precedents in folk and outsider art, at the same time that it
took valuable cues from twentieth century figurative sculpture.However, it differed drastically from both in that it attempted to bring
specific personal thematic material into an arena (crafts) that had very much
been dominated by society’s need for cultural homogeneity.I define narrative works quite broadly
as those in which the artist’s own voice can be heard clearly and without
subterfuge, utilizingrecognizable
images that have direct corollaries in the real world of experience.There is certainly a history of
narrative work in precious metals, from the infamous Dinglinger Brothers “The
Court at Delhi on the Birthday of the Great Mogul Aureng-Zeb” done in the early
18th C for the King of Saxony, to thetour de force miniatures of Faberge.This new work however, has clearly distanced itself from the
often trite opulence of these relics of imperialism and chosen a more modest,
socially aware agenda that is in keeping with the post modernist trend.

Narrative work plays a significant
role in contemporary holloware, and into this diverse group I place that of
Marilyn da Silva, Robin Kraft, Richard Mawdsley,Daniel

Wroblewski, Suzanne Pugh, Robly
Glover, and Andrew McDonald.Particularlydisturbing are
the works of Wroblewski, and they call into question the uneasy marriage between
the craft/decorative arts agenda and personal narrative.As his artist’s statement indicates,
these flashy and ornate vessels make a reference to the somber realism of his
past as a police diver, with titles, such as B/M/13 (Black, Male,

13 years old, I assume) that refer
directly to the anonymity of the recovered victims.

p.10

The bases of the works contain a
symbol that appears to be a tooth, a reference to the methods by which these
victims are identified. The unsettling and socially charged

thematic material, however, has a
life of its own that is separate from these precious, meticulously executed and
polished chalices, and I can only assume and hope that the maker intended
reflection on the ironic vacuousness of the social conventions we choose to
commemorate.If so, it is a
dangerous methodology that has often plagued narrative work in all craft media,resulting in subject matter that is not
translated into the language of form.Choosing a powerful and meaningful theme and then relying on the beauty
and preciousness of a well-executed craft object to elevate that theme is not
enough. The form most necessarily act as a transparency through which the
narrative can unfold, and in which is presented a convincing argument for the
truth of its content.

In the best of the narrative pieces, a way of working has
been developed that allows the viewer to become engaged in the narrative with
or without an artist’s statement, and into this group I put Marilyn da Silva,
Robin Kraft, Richard Mawdsley, (and Metcalf, himself, if this wasn’t a
holloware issue). Mawdsley has always been the ultimate practitioner of the
miniaturistic style and here he doesn’t disappoint--his work is awe-inspiring
in detail and complexity. Da Silva’s lyrical and sensitive work, although not
really holloware yet still more craft than contemporary sculpture, sets up a
tableau in which the viewer is invited to enter and participate , and it is undeniably
captivating in its carefully chosen and beautifully rendered symbolic
imagery.Kraft, on the other
hand, creates a narrative within the vessel format, choosingpost-industrial imagery, such as
repeating coffee mugs or metal silos. These are charming works that are rich in
decorative textural effects that relate to the details of her late modernist reference ( it is a sign of the times
that we are now sentimentalizing industrialization). They allure with
familiarity anddomestic
lightheartedness.

At many periods during the history
of Western Arts, one can find artists who have looked to Asian Art for
inspiration, and certainly, as we entered an age of pluralism, there has been a
general re-interest in the blending of Eastern and Western thought.Thefundamental differences between the two could be the subject
of another paper by another writer, since this is not my area of expertise, so
I will defer again to the words of Bernard Cache, who offers some interesting,
if not inclusive, remarks of the subject:

The first architectural gesture is acted upon the earth: it
is our grave or our foundation.A
plane against a surface of variable curvature, the first frame is an
excavation. But perhaps this is just the bedrock of Western thought.We put substance first: the hard, the
full.Eastern thought puts the
void first, and therefore the first frame is not an excavation but its
negative: a screen.Unlike our Western
architecture whose first frame confronts the earth, Japanese architecture
raises its screens to the wind, the

p.11

light, and the rain.Partitions and parasols rather than excavations: screens emphasize the
void. 10

Two artists, Tom Odell and Dennis
Nahabetian, seem to subscribe to this theory of

emphasizing the void and, in fact,
both acknowledge the stylistic influence of Oriental art in their artist’s
statements.I could have
included both Chunghi Choo and Komelia

Okim in this category, because
their work certainly exhibits the influence of Korean metalsmithing and the
elegant ethereal forms that one associates with the arts of Japan, China and
Korea.However, both of these
artist have a firm foothold in Modernism that renders their work eclectic, and
in Komelia Okim’s case, there is certainly a strong influence of the relatively
modern trend of narrative work in Korean metalsmithing. The two artists I have
chosen seem to exist outside of the mainstream of American metals, and to
subscribe philosophically to a theory of possibility.Tom Odell makes quiet, modest and understated Kensui bowls
that are often raised from Japanese alloys, or utilizing the Japanese
mokume-gane process.The works
convey a profound sense of the Buddhist belief in the tautology of wholeness
and nothingness, the subtle details of surface are integrated with the form,
which is always open and non-constraining.Equally effective yet quite different are Nahabetian’s
works, which employ a textile process for the achievement of rigid, colored
screen-like forms that are visually light as air, rhythmic in their tightly
controlled yet fluid structure, that neither occupy space nor contain it, but ,
instead, allude to a temporality that is breathtaking in its fragility.

The final group of works I will
discuss are the most diverse and the ones that most readily defy
classification.These are the
craft objects of an age of pluralism that belong most completely to post
modernism.These objects
have severed with any real pretense of utility, andhave begun to use their history as apoint of reference and not as a
validation.In this group I
include the works of Cappy Counard Wolf, Felicia Szorad, Evan Larson, Leonard
Urso, Miel Paredes, and Myra Mimlitsch-Gray.Leonard Urso and Miel Paredes have created the works that
are the most patently sculptural in the traditional sense, and one cannot but
mention the legacy of expertly crafted sculpture that includes both Cellini and
Brancusi.As I have said earlier,
here one finds the continuation of a tradition that is all but lost in the fine